High-tech Cancer Treatment comes to North Texas

Inside a new three-story facility in Irving,Texas, a team of physicists, engineers and medical doctors is working on a new tool to fight cancer, all directed by one of the leading radiation oncologists in the country. "I found the Proton Therapy to be not only very effective, but our published reports on the toxicity profile, and patient satisfaction rates have been quite good," medical director Dr. Andrew Lee explained.
During treatment a highly concentrated proton beam is shot into a cancerous tumor. The beam is generated by something called a particle accelerator, which speeds up the particles to roughly 60 percent of the speed of light. They head down a specially designed pathway, to be diverted to one of three treatment rooms. Once the protons reach the treatment room, they are concentrated into a beam that is aimed right at the cancerous cells. To make it as accurate as possible, a giant, three-story machine rotates the beam around the patient. SMU Physics Professor Steve Sekula says proton therapy is a great example of theoretical work yielding a practical result.